“Honestly, as a New Yorker, it’s all about having a sit-down at a place that isn’t built for anything other than a quality meal. As long as the food is correct and comes out pretty quickly, I’m good on service, no need for a smile with it. Obviously, tourism is a big thing here, so I make it a point to stay in the cut - and I say that with Chinatown being my favorite neighborhood in Manhattan, and definitely tourism Hell - hence never catching me at Joe’s Shanghai. I’ll definitely take the Upper East Side over Williamsburg ... actually, Queens over Brooklyn, all day (unless you’re about some Caribbean food, though Queens is starting to catch up to Flatbush). Either way, when is it ever the wrong time to get a wild meal at a genuinely efficient establishment, without the hour and a half wait? The most universal form of communication right there, G.

Also, fuck this whole I’m-saving-money-so-I-have-to-eat-fast-food thing. That’s really some shitty performance art thing at this point ... like cooking up crack to smoke, yourself, in 2015. Fast food isn’t even cheap these days. Fuck Chipotle too. If you’re trying to save money, learn how to flip things like peanut butter and jelly, oatmeal, find a bodega with a mean cold cut game, and yeah ... Chinatown. You will feel a lot better.”

Ripley Soprano is a co-owner and co-conspirator of this here magazine.